February 26, 2023 • 19 mins
Do you double strand rappel a lot? Coming from the climbing world we did too until we learned the benefits of single strand rappelling.
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Katie (00:08):
Hey everyone.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm Katie
Carma (00:10):
and I'm Carma and you're listening to, I'd rather be
canyoneering.
Katie (00:14):
We're best friends who totally geek out about canyon
rigging and beautifully slotcanyons.
Basically we'd always rather becanyoneering.
But when we can't, we spendevery spare minute, we have
talking about it.
Carma (00:26):
This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
Please seek professionalinstruction and practice
technical skills in a controlledenvironment before entering slot
canyons.
Your safety is entirely your ownresponsibility.
Katie (00:41):
Welcome to our canyon crew! What is the difference
between repelling and doublestrand Reell I've been rock
climbing for decade And I havecome down plenty of rappels
double stranded on my ATC Nowsomebody's telling me that I
need to do something differentWhat are you talking about Why
(01:01):
don't you think I know what I'mdoing I've got plenty of
experience And yet in a newenvironment there might be some
other choices that I wanted tomake I realized that I was doing
it all wrong When I came into aslot canyon that had a ton of
short rappels I later came tocall these nuisance rappels I
(01:22):
had like most canyon years do a200 foot rope and I'm going down
this canyon And I was about toget out my rope at every single
repel That was my plan to getout my rope at every single
repel and throw it down set themiddle mark and repel down
double stranded I came up to thefirst rappel and I went to set
(01:42):
it up as a double strand rappelAnd here comes my buddy With a
carabiner his hand and I saidwhat are you gonna do with that
Brett And he hands it to me andtold me to put a clove hitch on
it So I did And I saw what itlooked like to only let out 15
feet of rope at a 15 foot repelAnd I left the rest of the rope
(02:02):
at the top and we repelledsingle strand the last person
chucked the rope bag down Weonly had 30 feet of rope to deal
with And we went on our Merryway repeating this another 15
times saving a ton of time downthis canyon And I knew that I
needed to upgrade my skills andfigure out A lot more techniques
(02:24):
that I had been missing out on
Carma (02:26):
Yeah and it really was eye opening when we realized
there's another way to do thislike we had just been Throwing
and going for so long and whatwe mean by that is taking your
rope sticking it through therepeat on the bottom of the
anchor and then throwing bothends down and then putting two
(02:46):
strands into your rappel deviceto repel off of And one of the
nice things about it is thatit's quick and it's easy to
inspect Like you Really need alot of training to be able to
see oh the rope went through theanchor
Katie (03:02):
I had actually learned throw and go in a class That was
the technique that we we learnedand that we were taught And
there are so many more optionsthat I don't know why we didn't
talk about more I wish we hadbut I'm really glad that I've
learned them now
Carma (03:15):
So that's kind of one we wanna focus on today is single
stranding and double strandingriggings And like Whit situation
you would wanna choose one overthe other where they shine where
they don't shine
Katie (03:30):
Yeah climbers I'm gonna give you all a shout out here I
get it double strand Repellingmakes a whole lot of sense When
you're coming back down aclimbing route that you just did
for one thing climbing routesare usually pretty vertical
That's why we climb up thembecause they're fun and they're
challenging In canyoneering theroute is often windy and you
might get to like some five fourclimbing that has a lot of
(03:52):
ledges and turns and bends andplaces for the rope to get
snagged when you single strandyou're able to control those
ropes You also have a lot moreoptions in case of emergency A
lot of times with climbing Wejust came up the route We know
it's there and now we're goingback down There's nothing really
to surprise us at the bottom Wealso know that the rope touched
because I was able to be lowereddown I know where my rope mark
(04:13):
was so that's not always thecase in canyon air You can't
always see the bottom and youcan't always see that your rope
is touching it's kind of anadded challenge to that Quite a
few things that play into it Alot of times in can airing You
might be repelling into a poolof water and that's a lot
different Most climbers don'tstart their climate a pool of
water And so they don't havethat obstacle to navigate when
(04:34):
they get down being cold and wetand trying to work with their
gear while they're swimmingdoesn't come up very often for
climbers So I if you're doingthat you might be doing
something wrong or you might bedoing something really And uh it
just it's techniques that werespecific to this canyon
environment that I didn'trealize how helpful it was to
have the extra tools until Ireally started playing in the
(04:56):
new environment
Carma (04:58):
kind of another one of our aha moments regarding double
stranding versus singlestranding was when I realized
that these hand extenders that Ihad been carrying through all
these canyons Could only go onone strand of the rope And I
(05:19):
realized that I was carryingthem for self rescue and That if
I'm double stranding they'rebasically useless if I get stuck
in the middle of the rebel
Katie (05:33):
Oh
Carma (05:34):
and I don't know why it took so long for those dots to
get connected by a line but itdid and you can self rescue on
double strand Set up but youcan't do it with mechanical
Ascenders you're gonna need twoprotic knots to be able to
ascend a double strand If youare coming down it and get stuck
(05:58):
in the middle of it and need torescue yourself
Katie (06:00):
Right If you're just gonna put those hand of centers
on one strand then you're gonnastart pulling it through If
you're trying to put it on oneand then the other you are just
going to slide it back and forthSo all these ideas that we
originally thought oh yeah we'reso smart We brought our senders
that wouldn't work So karma whatare some of our other options
that we learned besides just thetoss and go or throw and
Carma (06:23):
One of the first other options that we learned was to
do a beaner block So that's justtaking a carabiner tying a clove
hitch And Pulling that upagainst the repeat so that it
blocks one side of the rope andallows you to just go down on
one strand And we realized allof the options that are
(06:47):
available to you when you do asetup like that as opposed to a
double stranded So one of thenice things about doing a beaner
block or any single rope systemis that you keep The other half
of the rope in reserve at thetop of the repel say someone
goes down and gets stuck halfwaythrough you have a whole other
half of the rope that you canuse to rescue You can use to go
(07:11):
down to them you just have a lotmore options for
Katie (07:16):
I think this was one of those systems that as a
beginning can and year I hadn'tthought all the way through
because I had thought okaydouble strand repel Um Yeah I
guess if they get stuck I'lljust get on rappel too and go
down to them But once both thoseropes are weighted you cannot
pull a bite of rope into yourrappel device And once those
strands of rope are weightedeven if you could get your
(07:38):
device on there you have afireman belay hanging on below
you So the person pulling onthat is not gonna let you
there's not a way to get down tothem on your regular device
You're gonna need to dosomething special like get a
protic on there that you can godown on like a VT protic or
something like that But there'snot a lot of other options And
it was one of those things thatjust hadn't hadn't seen it
(08:00):
enough to really play out asmany situations as actually can
come up in the canyons
Carma (08:05):
And like we were saying it's a little more complicated
to self rescue with a doublestrand with a single strand You
can use any of the mechanicalsenders out there um to rescue
yourself in the middle of repelMicro traction or a rope man or
a T block you know whateveryou've got hanging on your belt
(08:26):
is an option for you when you'reon a single strand or pile on a
beaner block another nice thingabout it too is that you really
don't need anyone to be likebabysitting uh one side of the
rope So It's just locked offThere's not much to do as far as
anchor managing up at the topit's hands free anchor which is
(08:49):
really nice to simplify theanchor manager's job And another
benefit of the beaner block isthat if you have a situation
where the pole might be a littletouchy You can keep the pole
side of the rope kind of out ofthe way so that you're not
(09:11):
getting tangled up with therappel side as you're going down
it can make the rope pull just alot simpler
Katie (09:20):
The other thing that I really like with using a beaner
block or anything to help mesingle strand a repel is that I
can set the rope length And Ialready told you how that could
be advantageous If you have somenuisance repels just some short
repels that you can see thebottom of it's also super
helpful in wet canyons where youmay need to do a swimming
disconnect The last thing youwanna do is be at the bottom of
(09:43):
a waterfall Be splashing aroundunder the water over the water
and try to be getting yourdevice off and drop your device
in the water and lose it underthat waterfall Cuz you're not
gonna find it You're not gonnasee it Don't know if you brought
your goggles but you're probablynot gonna see it ever again So
what would be a lot safer wouldbe to set that rope plank right
at the water level foot abovethe water somewhere right in
(10:05):
there and be able to repel rightoff the end into that water And
that way you are not Trying todisconnect while your hands are
cold and fumbly And you're alsonot risking tling up the rope in
whatever's underneath the watercuz you don't know if there's a
log jam under there You don'tknow if there's a branch and you
don't wanna be diving under awaterfall to try to untangle
(10:27):
something So it's gonna be a loteasier if you are able to set
that rope length especially onthe wet canyons it can save
somebody's life
Carma (10:34):
there are a couple of things to just watch out for
when you're going to pull yourrope down With the beaner on the
one side on the pole side it isbigger than just you know a rope
set up as a double strand And sothe beaner can sometimes get
caught on something in the polethat's just something to watch
(10:54):
out for So you can make thatchoice you know even if you had
a Benet block set up foreverybody else the last person
coming down could decide to justconvert it to a double strand
and that's super easy All theyhave to do is take the
Katie (11:08):
To be honest I've never gotten a beaner caught uh but I
know it could happen and I'vechosen not to do it sometimes
because I think it might getcaught a lot of times you're
able to navigate that and see itcoming over an edge If you have
a clean view of it you can avoidthose types of things But if
you're getting into like areally windy area that's where
you might choose something likethat double stranded repel for
the last person
Carma (11:29):
Yeah And probably the biggest safety concern with a
beaner block is you need to besure that every person going
down the repel Is repelling onthe rappel side of the rope and
not the pull side of the ropethe pull side of the rope the
(11:51):
side that the beaner is on isnot isolated And so it can if
someone Puts the repel device onthe pull side of a beaner block
That means that nothing iskeeping the rope up there and it
can pull out and they're justgonna go down So one of the
(12:11):
things you can do to help peoplemake sure that they're on the
right side of the rope is to notthrow the rope bag down until
the very last person has riggedthemselves on that way it's like
a really quick visual that theonly Piece of rope That's going
over the edge is the safe one togo down the the correct side the
(12:32):
rappel side
Katie (12:34):
It's a fatal mistake It's a fatal mistake to repel down
the wrong side of a beaner blockDon't do that really be aware of
it You also need to make surethat the knot is tied properly
if someone puts a really sloppyclove hitch on there it's gonna
roll over itself You don't wantit spinning around and being in
weird places You want that clovehitch set on the spine of the
(12:54):
carabiner and just make surethat it is a well dressed knot
that it looks good every timesomebody goes down It doesn't
require as much babysitting Andusually that is just fine and
nobody ever has to touch it Atthe same time It is one that I
always check before I go overAnd I love what karma was saying
That keeping that bag at the toplets everybody know the rope
(13:14):
That's going down The repels therope that I'm repelling on and
the rope that's at the top isnot it's very obvious what
what's to be repelled on and notAnd that your last person down
should be one of your moreexperienced canyon Who knows
either to clip that bag to theirhip or to throw it and they can
convert that to something elseSo that's one of the things
(13:37):
about a beaner block is that youcan choose to leave it as is and
repel down on that proper sideOr your last person could throw
both sides and turn it into adouble stranded repel where
there can be no mistake You doboth I guess that's not fair
Don't single strand on a doublestrand either There are mistakes
you can make Nonetheless it's alot more clear if you wanna do
(14:00):
that double strand at the end
Carma (14:01):
And most of the time I feel like you can see the beaner
block and do like a visual checkbefore you start going down But
also It's another good reason tojust be in the practice of
waiting your whole system beforeyou take off your personal
anchor So while you're stillclipped in straight to the
(14:24):
anchor go ahead and rig up yourrepelling device and your third
hand and try to set your weighton it to make sure that
everything's the way it shouldbe
Katie (14:37):
know when I come up to a beaner block I actually have
made it a habit that I clip instraight to the anchor with my
personal anchor system or mytether whatever you want to call
it And then I actually move thatblock I slide it back and forth
and I visually check which sideit's smashing up against I give
it space I pull it about 10inches away and then I slam it
up against it just pulling itback and forth And then I wait
(15:00):
it and I test it that it'sweight There have been incidents
where people have just done apoll test where they just yank
back on it and they're like ohit didn't move And they've
repelled on that Based off ofthe fact that they didn't think
it moved well the rope was juststuck a little bit and they were
on the wrong side So just beaware that you want to visually
(15:21):
check and do the pull check andthen go over it doesn't add much
to your sequence to just pullunclip and then karma Have you
ever seen somebody try to rig onthe wrong side of a beaner block
Carma (15:35):
It can be tricky Sometimes I was in a canyon once
where the webbing was around apinch point and over the edge of
a chalk stone And so where therepeat was sitting was kind of
hanging down in this hole wherewe couldn't see it So when I set
up the beaner block I had to youknow reach down and kind of fish
for it and fish it out of thehole and set up the beaner block
(15:57):
And then I let it go loose againwhile my friend was getting
ready to go down And so I stillhad the rope at the top and she
reached in and grabbed a ropeand started rigging her critter
onto it And I pulled up on therope to kind of bring the whole
(16:18):
anchor up and out of the hole sowe could see what was going on
And we realized that she hadstarted rigging on the wrong
side It was the side of the ropethat looped back up to the bag
not the side that was meant togo down the repel So it is easy
to get it wrong if you can't seethings clearly So make sure in
(16:41):
situations like that that you'repulling it up and clearly
visualizing which side of thebeaner block that you're on
Katie (16:48):
Yeah it's a really good idea No no room for guessing
there I'm glad you pulled it upWell when you switch to canyon
urine there are some things thatyou do different And those are
the things that I didn't know Ididn't know And some of those
obstacles are just in a rockclimb everything that's five
three or harder has a prettystraight drop back down to the
ground And You're now exposingyourself in canyoneering to
(17:11):
running into more rolling kindof canyons and turning canyons
where your rope might get stuckThere's reasons you might not
wanna come down on a doublestrand because those ropes might
land top of each other and getpinched Or maybe it is that you
wanna set the length of the ropeso that you are repelling off
into water And so you're gonnacome down on a single strand and
(17:31):
Maybe you're coming down Yourrope Diameter was nine
millimeters as a climber and nowit's eight millimeters as a
canyon ear So you're coming downand now you're on a single
strand So you're coming down alot faster and all of a sudden
your ATC might not be goodenough to give you enough
friction to safely come downThat repel you might be moving
too fast Same thing with areally long repel climbers are
(17:53):
usually doing repels with theirregular 60 meter rope doubled up
So we're talking about about ahundred feet that a climber is
going to do Maybe you have tworopes tied together and you're
doing 200 feet Okay That'spossible But usually that's 200
feet on a double strand AgainNow we're gonna switch over and
do that 200 foot repel on asingle strand That's eight mil
(18:14):
and you might even jump up to a300 foot repel And just the
friction really changes theweight of the rope starts to
really play And at the top thereis a ton of friction from the
weight of the rope helping youout And then at the bottom you
have almost none as you have nomore weight of the rope and it
could really fly through yourhands at the bottom So that is
(18:35):
something that's very differentand you might not see it coming
until you started to experienceit and actually are getting out
there canyoneering So it's niceto know ahead of time that there
are some skills that aredifferent but other than that
you do have a lot of reallygreat skills as a climber And we
want you at the table Especiallykarma And I want climbers to
feel comfortable and confidentas they're coming in here and
(18:56):
also being aware of some of thedifferences so that they don't
get caught by surprise Like wedid
Carma (19:04):
if you're totally hooked on canyoneering like us,
remember to subscribe, so youdon't miss any episodes and you
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with questions, comments, topicsyou wanna talk about, or just to
say, Hey, cuz We would love tohear from you.
Thanks for dropping in with usand we'll catch you on the wrap
(19:25):
side.
Hey everyone.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm Katie
Carma (00:10):
and I'm Carma and you're listening to, I'd rather be
canyoneering.
Katie (00:14):
We're best friends who totally geek out about canyon
rigging and beautifully slotcanyons.
Basically we'd always rather becanyoneering.
But when we can't, we spendevery spare minute, we have
talking about it.
Carma (00:26):
This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
Please seek professionalinstruction and practice
technical skills in a controlledenvironment before entering slot
canyons.
Your safety is entirely your ownresponsibility.
Katie (00:41):
Welcome to our canyon crew! What is the difference
between repelling and doublestrand Reell I've been rock
climbing for decade And I havecome down plenty of rappels
double stranded on my ATC Nowsomebody's telling me that I
need to do something differentWhat are you talking about Why
(01:01):
don't you think I know what I'mdoing I've got plenty of
experience And yet in a newenvironment there might be some
other choices that I wanted tomake I realized that I was doing
it all wrong When I came into aslot canyon that had a ton of
short rappels I later came tocall these nuisance rappels I
(01:22):
had like most canyon years do a200 foot rope and I'm going down
this canyon And I was about toget out my rope at every single
repel That was my plan to getout my rope at every single
repel and throw it down set themiddle mark and repel down
double stranded I came up to thefirst rappel and I went to set
(01:42):
it up as a double strand rappelAnd here comes my buddy With a
carabiner his hand and I saidwhat are you gonna do with that
Brett And he hands it to me andtold me to put a clove hitch on
it So I did And I saw what itlooked like to only let out 15
feet of rope at a 15 foot repelAnd I left the rest of the rope
(02:02):
at the top and we repelledsingle strand the last person
chucked the rope bag down Weonly had 30 feet of rope to deal
with And we went on our Merryway repeating this another 15
times saving a ton of time downthis canyon And I knew that I
needed to upgrade my skills andfigure out A lot more techniques
(02:24):
that I had been missing out on
Carma (02:26):
Yeah and it really was eye opening when we realized
there's another way to do thislike we had just been Throwing
and going for so long and whatwe mean by that is taking your
rope sticking it through therepeat on the bottom of the
anchor and then throwing bothends down and then putting two
(02:46):
strands into your rappel deviceto repel off of And one of the
nice things about it is thatit's quick and it's easy to
inspect Like you Really need alot of training to be able to
see oh the rope went through theanchor
Katie (03:02):
I had actually learned throw and go in a class That was
the technique that we we learnedand that we were taught And
there are so many more optionsthat I don't know why we didn't
talk about more I wish we hadbut I'm really glad that I've
learned them now
Carma (03:15):
So that's kind of one we wanna focus on today is single
stranding and double strandingriggings And like Whit situation
you would wanna choose one overthe other where they shine where
they don't shine
Katie (03:30):
Yeah climbers I'm gonna give you all a shout out here I
get it double strand Repellingmakes a whole lot of sense When
you're coming back down aclimbing route that you just did
for one thing climbing routesare usually pretty vertical
That's why we climb up thembecause they're fun and they're
challenging In canyoneering theroute is often windy and you
might get to like some five fourclimbing that has a lot of
(03:52):
ledges and turns and bends andplaces for the rope to get
snagged when you single strandyou're able to control those
ropes You also have a lot moreoptions in case of emergency A
lot of times with climbing Wejust came up the route We know
it's there and now we're goingback down There's nothing really
to surprise us at the bottom Wealso know that the rope touched
because I was able to be lowereddown I know where my rope mark
(04:13):
was so that's not always thecase in canyon air You can't
always see the bottom and youcan't always see that your rope
is touching it's kind of anadded challenge to that Quite a
few things that play into it Alot of times in can airing You
might be repelling into a poolof water and that's a lot
different Most climbers don'tstart their climate a pool of
water And so they don't havethat obstacle to navigate when
(04:34):
they get down being cold and wetand trying to work with their
gear while they're swimmingdoesn't come up very often for
climbers So I if you're doingthat you might be doing
something wrong or you might bedoing something really And uh it
just it's techniques that werespecific to this canyon
environment that I didn'trealize how helpful it was to
have the extra tools until Ireally started playing in the
(04:56):
new environment
Carma (04:58):
kind of another one of our aha moments regarding double
stranding versus singlestranding was when I realized
that these hand extenders that Ihad been carrying through all
these canyons Could only go onone strand of the rope And I
(05:19):
realized that I was carryingthem for self rescue and That if
I'm double stranding they'rebasically useless if I get stuck
in the middle of the rebel
Katie (05:33):
Oh
Carma (05:34):
and I don't know why it took so long for those dots to
get connected by a line but itdid and you can self rescue on
double strand Set up but youcan't do it with mechanical
Ascenders you're gonna need twoprotic knots to be able to
ascend a double strand If youare coming down it and get stuck
(05:58):
in the middle of it and need torescue yourself
Katie (06:00):
Right If you're just gonna put those hand of centers
on one strand then you're gonnastart pulling it through If
you're trying to put it on oneand then the other you are just
going to slide it back and forthSo all these ideas that we
originally thought oh yeah we'reso smart We brought our senders
that wouldn't work So karma whatare some of our other options
that we learned besides just thetoss and go or throw and
Carma (06:23):
One of the first other options that we learned was to
do a beaner block So that's justtaking a carabiner tying a clove
hitch And Pulling that upagainst the repeat so that it
blocks one side of the rope andallows you to just go down on
one strand And we realized allof the options that are
(06:47):
available to you when you do asetup like that as opposed to a
double stranded So one of thenice things about doing a beaner
block or any single rope systemis that you keep The other half
of the rope in reserve at thetop of the repel say someone
goes down and gets stuck halfwaythrough you have a whole other
half of the rope that you canuse to rescue You can use to go
(07:11):
down to them you just have a lotmore options for
Katie (07:16):
I think this was one of those systems that as a
beginning can and year I hadn'tthought all the way through
because I had thought okaydouble strand repel Um Yeah I
guess if they get stuck I'lljust get on rappel too and go
down to them But once both thoseropes are weighted you cannot
pull a bite of rope into yourrappel device And once those
strands of rope are weightedeven if you could get your
(07:38):
device on there you have afireman belay hanging on below
you So the person pulling onthat is not gonna let you
there's not a way to get down tothem on your regular device
You're gonna need to dosomething special like get a
protic on there that you can godown on like a VT protic or
something like that But there'snot a lot of other options And
it was one of those things thatjust hadn't hadn't seen it
(08:00):
enough to really play out asmany situations as actually can
come up in the canyons
Carma (08:05):
And like we were saying it's a little more complicated
to self rescue with a doublestrand with a single strand You
can use any of the mechanicalsenders out there um to rescue
yourself in the middle of repelMicro traction or a rope man or
a T block you know whateveryou've got hanging on your belt
(08:26):
is an option for you when you'reon a single strand or pile on a
beaner block another nice thingabout it too is that you really
don't need anyone to be likebabysitting uh one side of the
rope So It's just locked offThere's not much to do as far as
anchor managing up at the topit's hands free anchor which is
(08:49):
really nice to simplify theanchor manager's job And another
benefit of the beaner block isthat if you have a situation
where the pole might be a littletouchy You can keep the pole
side of the rope kind of out ofthe way so that you're not
(09:11):
getting tangled up with therappel side as you're going down
it can make the rope pull just alot simpler
Katie (09:20):
The other thing that I really like with using a beaner
block or anything to help mesingle strand a repel is that I
can set the rope length And Ialready told you how that could
be advantageous If you have somenuisance repels just some short
repels that you can see thebottom of it's also super
helpful in wet canyons where youmay need to do a swimming
disconnect The last thing youwanna do is be at the bottom of
(09:43):
a waterfall Be splashing aroundunder the water over the water
and try to be getting yourdevice off and drop your device
in the water and lose it underthat waterfall Cuz you're not
gonna find it You're not gonnasee it Don't know if you brought
your goggles but you're probablynot gonna see it ever again So
what would be a lot safer wouldbe to set that rope plank right
at the water level foot abovethe water somewhere right in
(10:05):
there and be able to repel rightoff the end into that water And
that way you are not Trying todisconnect while your hands are
cold and fumbly And you're alsonot risking tling up the rope in
whatever's underneath the watercuz you don't know if there's a
log jam under there You don'tknow if there's a branch and you
don't wanna be diving under awaterfall to try to untangle
(10:27):
something So it's gonna be a loteasier if you are able to set
that rope length especially onthe wet canyons it can save
somebody's life
Carma (10:34):
there are a couple of things to just watch out for
when you're going to pull yourrope down With the beaner on the
one side on the pole side it isbigger than just you know a rope
set up as a double strand And sothe beaner can sometimes get
caught on something in the polethat's just something to watch
(10:54):
out for So you can make thatchoice you know even if you had
a Benet block set up foreverybody else the last person
coming down could decide to justconvert it to a double strand
and that's super easy All theyhave to do is take the
Katie (11:08):
To be honest I've never gotten a beaner caught uh but I
know it could happen and I'vechosen not to do it sometimes
because I think it might getcaught a lot of times you're
able to navigate that and see itcoming over an edge If you have
a clean view of it you can avoidthose types of things But if
you're getting into like areally windy area that's where
you might choose something likethat double stranded repel for
the last person
Carma (11:29):
Yeah And probably the biggest safety concern with a
beaner block is you need to besure that every person going
down the repel Is repelling onthe rappel side of the rope and
not the pull side of the ropethe pull side of the rope the
(11:51):
side that the beaner is on isnot isolated And so it can if
someone Puts the repel device onthe pull side of a beaner block
That means that nothing iskeeping the rope up there and it
can pull out and they're justgonna go down So one of the
(12:11):
things you can do to help peoplemake sure that they're on the
right side of the rope is to notthrow the rope bag down until
the very last person has riggedthemselves on that way it's like
a really quick visual that theonly Piece of rope That's going
over the edge is the safe one togo down the the correct side the
(12:32):
rappel side
Katie (12:34):
It's a fatal mistake It's a fatal mistake to repel down
the wrong side of a beaner blockDon't do that really be aware of
it You also need to make surethat the knot is tied properly
if someone puts a really sloppyclove hitch on there it's gonna
roll over itself You don't wantit spinning around and being in
weird places You want that clovehitch set on the spine of the
(12:54):
carabiner and just make surethat it is a well dressed knot
that it looks good every timesomebody goes down It doesn't
require as much babysitting Andusually that is just fine and
nobody ever has to touch it Atthe same time It is one that I
always check before I go overAnd I love what karma was saying
That keeping that bag at the toplets everybody know the rope
(13:14):
That's going down The repels therope that I'm repelling on and
the rope that's at the top isnot it's very obvious what
what's to be repelled on and notAnd that your last person down
should be one of your moreexperienced canyon Who knows
either to clip that bag to theirhip or to throw it and they can
convert that to something elseSo that's one of the things
(13:37):
about a beaner block is that youcan choose to leave it as is and
repel down on that proper sideOr your last person could throw
both sides and turn it into adouble stranded repel where
there can be no mistake You doboth I guess that's not fair
Don't single strand on a doublestrand either There are mistakes
you can make Nonetheless it's alot more clear if you wanna do
(14:00):
that double strand at the end
Carma (14:01):
And most of the time I feel like you can see the beaner
block and do like a visual checkbefore you start going down But
also It's another good reason tojust be in the practice of
waiting your whole system beforeyou take off your personal
anchor So while you're stillclipped in straight to the
(14:24):
anchor go ahead and rig up yourrepelling device and your third
hand and try to set your weighton it to make sure that
everything's the way it shouldbe
Katie (14:37):
know when I come up to a beaner block I actually have
made it a habit that I clip instraight to the anchor with my
personal anchor system or mytether whatever you want to call
it And then I actually move thatblock I slide it back and forth
and I visually check which sideit's smashing up against I give
it space I pull it about 10inches away and then I slam it
up against it just pulling itback and forth And then I wait
(15:00):
it and I test it that it'sweight There have been incidents
where people have just done apoll test where they just yank
back on it and they're like ohit didn't move And they've
repelled on that Based off ofthe fact that they didn't think
it moved well the rope was juststuck a little bit and they were
on the wrong side So just beaware that you want to visually
(15:21):
check and do the pull check andthen go over it doesn't add much
to your sequence to just pullunclip and then karma Have you
ever seen somebody try to rig onthe wrong side of a beaner block
Carma (15:35):
It can be tricky Sometimes I was in a canyon once
where the webbing was around apinch point and over the edge of
a chalk stone And so where therepeat was sitting was kind of
hanging down in this hole wherewe couldn't see it So when I set
up the beaner block I had to youknow reach down and kind of fish
for it and fish it out of thehole and set up the beaner block
(15:57):
And then I let it go loose againwhile my friend was getting
ready to go down And so I stillhad the rope at the top and she
reached in and grabbed a ropeand started rigging her critter
onto it And I pulled up on therope to kind of bring the whole
(16:18):
anchor up and out of the hole sowe could see what was going on
And we realized that she hadstarted rigging on the wrong
side It was the side of the ropethat looped back up to the bag
not the side that was meant togo down the repel So it is easy
to get it wrong if you can't seethings clearly So make sure in
(16:41):
situations like that that you'repulling it up and clearly
visualizing which side of thebeaner block that you're on
Katie (16:48):
Yeah it's a really good idea No no room for guessing
there I'm glad you pulled it upWell when you switch to canyon
urine there are some things thatyou do different And those are
the things that I didn't know Ididn't know And some of those
obstacles are just in a rockclimb everything that's five
three or harder has a prettystraight drop back down to the
ground And You're now exposingyourself in canyoneering to
(17:11):
running into more rolling kindof canyons and turning canyons
where your rope might get stuckThere's reasons you might not
wanna come down on a doublestrand because those ropes might
land top of each other and getpinched Or maybe it is that you
wanna set the length of the ropeso that you are repelling off
into water And so you're gonnacome down on a single strand and
(17:31):
Maybe you're coming down Yourrope Diameter was nine
millimeters as a climber and nowit's eight millimeters as a
canyon ear So you're coming downand now you're on a single
strand So you're coming down alot faster and all of a sudden
your ATC might not be goodenough to give you enough
friction to safely come downThat repel you might be moving
too fast Same thing with areally long repel climbers are
(17:53):
usually doing repels with theirregular 60 meter rope doubled up
So we're talking about about ahundred feet that a climber is
going to do Maybe you have tworopes tied together and you're
doing 200 feet Okay That'spossible But usually that's 200
feet on a double strand AgainNow we're gonna switch over and
do that 200 foot repel on asingle strand That's eight mil
(18:14):
and you might even jump up to a300 foot repel And just the
friction really changes theweight of the rope starts to
really play And at the top thereis a ton of friction from the
weight of the rope helping youout And then at the bottom you
have almost none as you have nomore weight of the rope and it
could really fly through yourhands at the bottom So that is
(18:35):
something that's very differentand you might not see it coming
until you started to experienceit and actually are getting out
there canyoneering So it's niceto know ahead of time that there
are some skills that aredifferent but other than that
you do have a lot of reallygreat skills as a climber And we
want you at the table Especiallykarma And I want climbers to
feel comfortable and confidentas they're coming in here and
(18:56):
also being aware of some of thedifferences so that they don't
get caught by surprise Like wedid
Carma (19:04):
if you're totally hooked on canyoneering like us,
remember to subscribe, so youdon't miss any episodes and you
can also reach out to us onFacebook.
with questions, comments, topicsyou wanna talk about, or just to
say, Hey, cuz We would love tohear from you.
Thanks for dropping in with usand we'll catch you on the wrap
(19:25):
side.
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